"If You Can Only Have One Great Love," 2nd Edition

Executives, regardless of self-sufficiency and perceived coolness, are a crazy breed. The JackieOh whirlwind assistant tour of Nice Hedge Fund has taken me through eight (count ‘em, eight) execs and will conclude in a few short weeks – just when things are getting interesting.

I like working for The Son of Mister Nice Hedge Fund. I should have applied for this position months ago when C left and I could have saved the HR Ladies from half a dozen Temp-induced headaches. It’s possible that I only enjoy this role because I’m so far out the door already, but I figure that if you have to be someone’s assistant you’re better off if that someone is as close to the top as possible.

So I got an email from the home assistant yesterday. The Son is in Europe for the board meeting with his family and like anyone in the history of people traveling somewhere, they forgot a few personal items. The list of oh-so-crucial forgotten items, and I quote:

Two black adult baseball caps
One bottle of pump spray sun screen
One cable for the camera
One pair of SPANX that are nude and waist high as opposed to being longer and going up past the rib cage
One regular black bra
One regular white jog bra (Champion)

Now, any normal person would, you know, head to the hotel gift shop for some sunscreen and tourist trap baseball caps. The undergarments might be a little trickier to wrangle, but SPANX? Oh honey, maybe eat a little less before trying to squeeze into that cocktail dress or work on the art of sucking in. Clearly, these aren’t normal people we’re dealing with here. These are billionaires, and they demand their own baseball caps! So the home assistant sent me their bag of crap via messenger, and I had to ask Easiest to please add it to his personal luggage. The entire exchange required nineteen emails involving five people.

I’d like to amend my Life Plan to marrying rich, but not helplessly, perspective-lessly rich.

Speaking of Life Plan, mine is finally starting to pull together. I drove down to Maryland last week and signed a lease on a nice one-bedroom apartment near campus, so that’s a huge stressy blob off my mind. Coach G decreed this past Sunday Jackie Day, and we started off the morning with yet another victory for Team Drinkin’ for the Kids in a relay biathlon. Later we went kayaking in the Hudson with a view of the Statue of Liberty and all I could think was how am I going to leave all this?

I’m leaving the Midtown Holding Pattern, and that of course raises The Break-Up Question. I don’t want to just cut off this relationship because I’m leaving – I want to say that I’ll visit whenever I can and things are going so well so don’t we owe it to each other to try the distance thing? Maybe we’ll be together again next summer, or maybe in two years after the program ends. But this is New York City I’m talking about here, and she’s a tempestuous lover. We’ve had our ups and downs these past six years, but I wouldn’t undo a single thing. (Okay, maybe I’d eliminate the robbery, or find lower rent while I’m in fantasy land, but otherwise, it's been a great relationship.) Even if it doesn’t work out while I’m four hours away at school, I hope we end up together in the future. When it’s right you know it, and feelings like these don’t just evaporate into the air above Ninth Avenue.